Hello,
I have a Samsung Galaxy S2.
After reading this post http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2382579 I decided to root my phone.
So I went ahead and started with this step http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1118693 because I was unsure if I had a kernel with the MMC-SUPERBRICK-BUG.
After I flashed CWM-SuperSU-v0.97.zip using Odin version 1.85 and after the phone rebooted it was stuck at the "triangle screen" for a few seconds then the display went black and I couldn't do anything further.
Up to this point the phone was still accessible in download mode (volume up, power and center button). I believe this is called "download mode". Sorry but I am a complete noob with rooting phones, etc...
So I panicked and took the phone to a repair shop (big mistake). The guy ran it in download mode then tried to flash something onto the phone (I think he used all 4 fields: Bootloader, PDA, Phone and CSC.
Then, in the middle of the operation, Odin froze when writing "setting up connection". Then the phone died ! pressing the 3 famous buttons does nothing and the phone just stays dead.
I had to leave the phone there as the guy said they will try to bypass stuff and try to connect to the CPU directly (sorry again if this sounds noobish). I did update my modem firmware and my computer BIOS in the past... but I guess this one was more complicated.
At the shop, they asked me to check again in 3 days. I am lost here. I don't know what to do anymore.
Is the phone hard bricked ? Should they bear all expenses for what they did ? I would bring back my phone and try something like this http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1878255 or even a stock flash but I am afraid I cannot do that as the phone isn't even powering up anymore after they tried to repair it at the shop.
Any advice is appreciated.
Nope. You borked it. You tried to flash custom firmware to the phone & obviously failed spectacularly at it. Instead of trying to flash it yourself via download mode (which you could easily have done unless the NAND was borked), you paid them to do it. Sometimes flashes go bad. Sounds like that's what happened in this case.
Reading between the lines they sound like they're going to try & JTAG it (or have someone else do it). And if that fails I presume they'll change motherboards. You could always get the phone back & take it to someone who does JTAGs if that shop doesn't themselves.
MistahBungle said:
Nope. You borked it. You tried to flash custom firmware to the phone & obviously failed spectacularly at it. Instead of trying to flash it yourself via download mode (which you could easily have done unless the NAND was borked), you paid them to do it. Sometimes flashes go bad. Sounds like that's what happened in this case.
Reading between the lines they sound like they're going to try & JTAG it (or have someone else do it). And if that fails I presume they'll change motherboards. You could always get the phone back & take it to someone who does JTAGs if that shop doesn't themselves.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes I know I failed at it
Or maybe the shop technician is the one who broke it. At least when I had the phone with me I was still able to boot in Odin mode.
Do you think I could have recovered my phone if I had kept it with me and it was booting in download mode ?
I feel so pissed that I took it to that shop. I just wish I hadn't panicked and I had tried, instead, to fix it at home by asking for more help.
Anyway I still haven't paid them anything so far.
We agreed that they will pay for the motherboard because I brought in a working phone (that would power up at least). The owner of the shop was nice enough to agree that he would only charge me fees for installing new software on the phone (even if they have to change the motherboard) because he knows the phone was booting in Odin mode when I came in to the shop and his technician flashed the wrong firmware.
I also wrote down the board serial number so I can be sure they changed it (if they say they did that). So you are telling me the phone can still be fixed ? What does JTAG mean ?
Even if it is fixed I think I will be too scared to try and root it again. Unless I can understand in advance, step by step, what I need to do and what file version(s) I need to use.
Ok, I got my phone today in good working condition.
According to the shop, they had to replace an IC (I don't know what damaged the IC, I am assuming this happened when they tried to electrically jolt the phone) then JTAG it to get it to work again. They charged me a small fee (and they did end up bearing more than 50% of the expenses) because I brought in a phone that was booting in download mode and they take responsibility for what happened after that (flashing wrong files which caused the phone to completely stop booting).
Anyway, long story short, this was my first attempt to root a mobile phone and I learned my lesson.
I am running the following:
Model Number: GT-I9100
Android Version: 4.0.3 (which I will need to upgrade to 4.1.2 of course)
Baseband Version: I9100XXLPW
I know you will say read the sticky posts or the guides but the truth is, that's exactly what I did (you can see the links to the guide I tried to follow in my original post) and I still ended up failing at rooting/installing cyanogen on my phone right after installing Clockwork Mod.
The truth is I am scared to try again and mess up the phone. So this time I would rather be safe than sorry.
What can I do, this time, to safely root it and install a mod like Cyanogen.
Detailed steps are appreciated:
- Do I need to upgrade to 4.1.2 before rooting as 4.0.3 might have the superbrick bug ?
- How to backup the phone.
- Odin version to use, ClockWork Mod version to use, Cyanogen version to use
- How to connect the phone, how to reboot in download mode and all the necessary actions to avoid bricking my phone.
No spoon feeding aloud on XDA.better to read and learn how to do this and that but before you flash anything after learning how to do that learn how to fix it if it doesn't work. :thumbup:
andrewwright said:
No spoon feeding aloud on XDA.better to read and learn how to do this and that but before you flash anything after learning how to do that learn how to fix it if it doesn't work. :thumbup:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fair enough, I figured I'd get that reply from someone and it's normal to be honest.
I decided not to try anything on my phone before I re-read the guides and be sure I know what I am doing.
I will also keep the phone running on stock firmware (after upgrading to JB 4.1.2) to check the battery consumption behavior which, I hope, will be fine since someone tampered with my phone's electronic components at the shop.
Related
Hello,
I reciently rooted my samsung galaxy s2. I tried a few roms so i could get used to the system or restoring etc. However i encountered a problem whilst having a peek at an alpha jellybean rom, where i noticed that my CWM app on the phone had vanished? I attempted the restore using the 3 button combo and found that i kept recieveing E: can't mount/ E: can't cache messages whilst on the restore screen. i could find my latest restore on my sd card however it wouldnt restore. I believe the CWM was removed from my phone which caused it to not work. I was then stuck in a bootloop. no matter what i done, boot to a stock rom via odin, try the different CF roms i and try to put CWM back on to the phone? I read a post on here from someone who had the same problem, who was told it looked as though there is a problem with the partitions. i followed a tutorial and used odin to put Latona 20110114.pit on the phone. it said i would get a blank screen once this has done and i needed to remove then place the battery back in the phone then put it into download again. This didnt happen!! I done as instructed and now my phone wont go into recovery mode, download mode or even boot loop. I fear i have completely bricked my phone so i am trying to use oneclick heimdall to sort it however my PC keeps saying i need admin rights to install it which i have.
Can someone please help me out. I am new to this so please go easy on me.
many thanks
If you have no signs of life from the phone, it's probably cactus.
You might as well try a jig (but unlikely to work; still try one tho). Only option is service centre & hope they can't tell/don't care you've been messing with it & fix it under warranty or JTAG repair by a 3rd party repairer, at your cost obviously; will be cheaper than having Samsung/an authorised repairer fix it if they refuse warranty service which they're quite within their rights to do.
edinsam said:
i followed a tutorial and used odin to put Latona 20110114.pit on the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First result of searching suggests that's meant for the I9003. Good job.
HA
Hello,
Awe well then. never mind eh, whats done is done! Its totally bricked so i thought i would chance my luck by sending it back to O2 for repair. I was reading the only other way to get the phone running again was to take it to bits and hook it up for some stock flashing. so heres hopping they sort it!
lesson learnt!!!
Okay, So I am as NOOB as NOOB can be,
I got a used SGS2 (Bell/Virgin), I am on Telus so I figured, how hard can it be to unlock it instead of paying some dude to do it for me? (First mistake, and have been humbled every step of the way since!...)
Anyway I will try to keep this relatively short (it will be difficult)... ...I read a few things online and saw that I needed ODIN and a Rooting software, I originally used SuperOneClick, and to download the right insecure kernel to match my original one etc... ...problem is I obviously didn't read nearly enough when I started because I was almost done and then there was a hiccup when SuperOneClick said that I needed to enable SU in Kies. So I decided to go into Kies to try and do so but the instructions before I started Rooting said to put the phone in USB debugging mode. Apparently Kies doesn't see the phone if it is in that mode. Well by this time I can't get past the logo screen and this is where my downward spiral begins.
I then tried to unroot the phone to go back to stock but didn't really know what I was doing and then I read something about the cache needing to be wiped and then after that I read that maybe my OS was wiped. So at this point I did lots of reading (what I should have done in the first place) and most of anything useful I found was on XDA so that is why I am here. It seemed like yes, in fact my OS was wiped because of one of my not so S-M-R-T actions. So I fumbled through and found the right OS for my S2 and I had ODIN going strong and I had the OS loading, the green bar getting bigger in ODIN and the blue bar working it's way across the screen of my S2...I thought "finally!!, I rock!!"... ...then for some reason everything stopped! I had seen in a post that I had to uninstall Kies before doing anything, which I did...but I didn't see until after the fact that my anti-virus likely interfered (I didn't disable it for the process before I started).
At that point of course I was left with a phone that says "Firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in Kies & try again."
So then I was afraid to try anything else because many say to steer clear of Kies and also I had read that I may need a USB jig to be able to get it back into download mode because all I was getting was the "firmware upgrade issue" screen. I did make a USB jig with a resistance of 300K Ohms and I *can* get the phone into download mode. (Though another concern is that when I plug the USB jig in and it brings the phone into download mode, the counter is not reset and I read that that was supposed to be reset by the jig.)
So last night I got brave and decided to try and run ODIN and to have another attempt at installation of OS. Now I can get ODIN to detect the phone, but I put the I9100MUGLD3_I9100MBMCLD3_I9100MXXLD3_HOME.tar.md5 file into the PDA section of ODIN and it starts and gets to the part where it says loading firmware or something and then bootload.bin and it stayed like that for like, an hour and then I gave up, fearing that I am just going to screw it up even more.
So now I decided that I am not even close to knowing what to do next but every time I found anything to move forward it was on this site so I figured I may as well join the site since I have been here so often. Now I am hoping for some kind of miracle...so, in advance, please please please and thank you thank you thank you all for your input. (Sorry for the length of this I just wanted to get all the info I could into this)
Its quite a long story and didnt bother reading it.
If you can still access your phone via odin at downloadmode. Flash a stock firmware for your device and it should fix if it is just a soft brick.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk
UnwiredDroid said:
Its quite a long story and didnt bother reading it.
If you can still access your phone via odin at downloadmode. Flash a stock firmware for your device and it should fix if it is just a soft brick.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry for the length of the story, I thought there may be alot of useful info mixed in with the useless info... ...when you say use stock firmware do you mean the kernel or the actual OS? I tried loading ICS onto it (which I thought was stock but I may be wrong). Is it supposed to be gingerbread or something else? Also where would I find a good file for it.
Thank you again for any input, very much appreciated!
Hey ,
I also have a Virgin Samsung S2 i9100 and the first time I tried rooting it, it got stuck on the screen with the yellow triangle and wouldnt move at all. I believe it was bricked?
anyways, I m not sure I totally understand your situation, but I solved my problem using this thread
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=21493413
look it under the i9100M section. hope this helps
schtiven said:
Hey ,
I also have a Virgin Samsung S2 i9100 and the first time I tried rooting it, it got stuck on the screen with the yellow triangle and wouldnt move at all. I believe it was bricked?
anyways, I m not sure I totally understand your situation, but I solved my problem using this thread
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=21493413
look it under the i9100M section. hope this helps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you all so much for your help, I could not get it to work after several tries, I even tried three or 4 different USB cables and ports on my PC and still no. I read on another thread that one person tried another PC and it worked so I tried my friend's laptop and it worked!...my SGS2 boots up and all that now! Very very happy thank you all.
Hi everyone,
I am a noob but I have scoured the earth and not been able to find any answer to this or any case of this occurring... yet. However the incidence may increase over the next few days as Vietnamese users update.
I have an unrooted S2 GT-i9100G (the ones released for Asian markets).
I bought it new out of an unopened box from a major retailer and have never installed any CFW.
I was running ICS without a hitch until yesterday (and had previously successfully updated from Gingerbread), when an official update announcement arrived (I'm assuming Jellybean... finally).
Phone ran update then rebooted and bricked, and now gets stuck on the splash screen (Black screen with "Samsung Galaxy S2 GT-I9100G in the middle).
If I enter recovery mode (down, home, power) then it shows me a screen with ODIN mode!
I don't get it. I thought ODIN was not included in stock phones? I'm also assuming this is why the stock FW update bricked the phone.
What steps should I take now? Since it appears ODIN may exist on the phone in some capacity should I hook it up to the PC and try to root the phone?
So far all I have done is cleared the phone memory using the standard recovery mode, and left ODIN mode running whilst unconnected to PC to see what happened (which was nothing). For some reason the phone drains completely in ODIN mode even when connected to a charger.
Thanks for your input on this one.
EDIT: Also please don't tell me to take it back to the retailer. The phone is out of warranty now and Vietnamese retailers don't take any responsibility for their products after sale, so I need to sort this out by myself. Thanks
Down/home/power is download mode, not recovery mode. Recovery mode is vol up/home/power.
You need to find an I9100G stock rom for your carrier/country from somewhere (maybe Samfirmware ?), get into download mode & flash it with Odin (how to do this has been covered thousands of times here; search). If Odin won't work or the phone/PC won't recognise each other, search for threads re: this issue. There's a set of 10-12 troubleshooting steps you need to try in that instance.
MistahBungle said:
Down/home/power is download mode, not recovery mode. Recovery mode is vol up/home/power.
You need to find an I9100G stock rom for your carrier/country from somewhere (maybe Samfirmware ?), get into download mode & flash it with Odin (how to do this has been covered thousands of times here; search). If Odin won't work or the phone/PC won't recognise each other, search for threads re: this issue. There's a set of 10-12 troubleshooting steps you need to try in that instance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Roger that. I'm sure I can figure out how to do all these things quite easily. But how about the fact that Odin is present on the phone? I was under the impression that Odin is an extra application that you install to root your phone and install CFW. My phone is unrooted and stock out of a sealed box, so should I expect to have Odin on it? I don't want to have CFW on my phone and I'm concerned that even after I fix this issue and unbrick the phone, I will have difficulty installing the latest Jellybean XXV region OFW through automatic update.
It also seems strange and contrary to me that I should have to even use unofficial methods in order to fix an official update that was delivered automatically.
Odin is not present on the phone. Download mode is also referred to as 'Odin mode' because you use Odin to flash whatever (normally stock roms) in this mode. Odin is a piece of Samsung software initially used by techs @ service centres but now widely used by people who visit XDA/similar places to flash stuff to their phones.
Edit - You can think it's 'strange or contrary' that you need to do X or Y to fix your phone. That's fine (Personally, I'm not really interested). That's how you can fix your phone. Sorry if I sound standoffish or whatever, it isn't personal at all, but you're just another person with a (slightly, at this point) busted phone who visits here. I've told you how to fix it, so you can either do that or not.
And there it is. Thanks for your guidance
MistahBungle said:
Odin is not present on the phone. Download mode is also referred to as 'Odin mode' because you use Odin to flash whatever (normally stock roms) in this mode. Odin is a piece of Samsung software initially used by techs @ service centres but now widely used by people who visit XDA/similar places to flash stuff to their phones.
Edit - You can think it's 'strange or contrary' that you need to do X or Y to fix your phone. That's fine (Personally, I'm not really interested). That's how you can fix your phone. Sorry if I sound standoffish or whatever, it isn't personal at all, but you're just another person with a (slightly, at this point) busted phone who visits here. I've told you how to fix it, so you can either do that or not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well until your final post I wasn't aware that download mode was also called Odin mode and that is perfectly normal for a stock phone to say this. I think it's perfectly reasonable for someone who has done a fair bit of research into fixing a stock phone to hear about Odin only in the context of rooting and CFW (pages which I avoid because I'm not interested in CFW), and thus to be surprised when they see Odin mentioned on their stock phone. Now that you've made me aware that this is normal, I'm perfectly capable of finding the info required to fix the phone.
I appreciate your help. I just wanted to mention this as it seems you feel I have asked this question unnecessarily. I hope this points out that if one follows this particular train of thought of fixing a stock phone then its very possible and not unreasonable to arrive at this conclusion.
Hey guys
1) Restarted my phone today using CM10.1 from a very recent nightly (within the past week).
2) On restart, phone froze and got kernel panic.
3) Restarted into CWM and tried to do a restore to an earlier backup I had made.
4) Half-way through the restore, I got ANOTHER kernel panic (never had that before)...
5) Only things I could do with the phone after that was enter download mode...nothing else...couldn't enter recovery mode anymore.
6) Went into download mode and flashed this CWM-Recovery (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1118693) and followed the instructions to the letter.
7) Odin 3.07 hung on NAND Write Start
8) Tried using Odin 1.3, and it seemed to flash correctly. It says completed no errors.
Phone will now not even start and is completely unresponsive...pressing any combination of buttons will not start the phone, and the phone is not recognized in Odin anymore...did I just hard brick it? Any other ideas?
Thanks,
Elliott
Service centre. Although if you can have someone who does JTAG's have a look at it to determine whether it can be JTAG'd without you giving them any money up front (I.E you only pay them if it can be JTAG'd), try that first.
Thanks that's what I thought.
Also, try a jig if you can get one. In all likelihood won't work, but stranger things have happened & you have nothing to lose.
Yeah thanks that's what I plan on doing. Any idea what I did wrong, though? I don't want it to happen again if I get it working with a jig.
Impossible to say. Not sure why you flashed that nondescript kernel/recovery in that situation tho given it probably wouldn't have worked even if the flash had been successful (You would probably have ended up with bootloop given recovery was obviously 'broken'). I would have flashed stock with Odin (And that's certainly what I tell people in your situation on here to do because it normally works).
But flashing recovery rather than a stock rom probably didn't break your phone, put it that way, so you didn't do anything 'wrong' per se. Just remember if you get into a similar situation again, go back to stock via Odin & start again (re-root your phone/restore a backup, flash your custom rom/kernel again, etc).
If the jig works (and don't get your hopes up or anything, we're talking a 1 in 10,000 chance, and that's probably being generous), flash stock with Odin (you wont have much choice).
Well...brought it to a JTAG specialist today and he couldn't fix it either...says it's very rare and he's had 5 out of 80 S2's like this happen without being able to fix them...
Bummer. Motherboard replacement in that case. If the phone's under warranty, take it to a service centre & say as little as possible. You might blag it for a warranty fix. No warranty ? You can still have a new motherboard put in by a service centre (more expensive option usually), or you can source a 2nd hand MB from a 'donor' phone (one with a broken screen that's otherwise OK, etc) & either swap it in yourself or pay a local mobile repair shop to do it (usually cheaper option).
@ OP By following what you flashed I noticed the date, we're talking about a 2 years old thread, a lot have changed since.
Not sure that was what bricked your device but I get that panic mode.
The other thing that it comes to mind is nand corruption, which has been quite common these days with people running custom.
I'm with bungle there, the best recovery package is going back to stock and start fresh.
I, on the other hand, wouldn't accept the situation you are on, I would spend a whole week trying to get that phone to boot again, whether a second opinion on a jtag, a new jig, another battery or any other thread on here at xda.
If the device gets hot near the rear camera and it won't even charge nor get warm around that area dismiss what I just said and proceed with the mobo replacement bungle suggested.
And of course, if you did something else to your device and didn't share it please, come clean so others don't freak out by reading this.
Sent from...this is not even my S2
Hey
Nothing else was done to the device...just what I stated exactly.
I caved today and bought a BNIB S3 because I couldn't go without a phone anymore...
Thanks for the help, guys
Elliott
Hey guys been searching for hours and hours and I really need someone to tell me whether I should keep trying to just throw my phone in the can
Somehow my GT-i9100 locked up while running and app and when I took the battery out and restarted it was stuck on the Samsung Logo.
I accessed the recovery menu and wiped cache...didn't work and the phone wouldn't be recognized by the computer nor would it charge when plugged to the wall outlet.
I decided to flash a new stock rom *Previously had the latest version of official ICS on my S2" and I proceeded to select the format/wipe to factory option.
It stayed there then it turned of and now it's a complete total brick! wtf.
I've read quite a bit and it has all the symptoms of an eMMC failure.
Is there any way I can save my phone? Will a jig work to force it into download mode?
I'm supposing the pit file fix requires the phone to boot in recovery.
If you can help me out I'll really appreciate it.
Thanks.
If you have no download mode or recovery/the phone won't boot at all, a jig is highly unlikely to do anything - but try one anyway given they only cost a few bucks. You might get lucky.
Likewise a JTAG more than likely won't be possible, if you can have someone who does JTAG's take a look at it on the basis of no payment unless a JTAG can be done, again you may as well try it.
Most likely fix is motherboard replacement - new one by Samsung service centre (most expensive option) or 2nd hand one by you/a local mobile repair shop (less expensive option).
If your phone was rooted at the time you did a wipe & the stock rom you were running was 4.0.4, then yes, it's probably the brickbug. But if your phone wasn't rooted and not running 4.0.4, then it could have been a whole host of things that caused it to brick (I can't help but feeling there's a bunch of info missing here).
MistahBungle said:
If you have no download mode or recovery/the phone won't boot at all, a jig is highly unlikely to do anything - but try one anyway given they only cost a few bucks. You might get lucky.
Likewise a JTAG more than likely won't be possible, if you can have someone who does JTAG's take a look at it on the basis of no payment unless a JTAG can be done, again you may as well try it.
Most likely fix is motherboard replacement - new one by Samsung service centre (most expensive option) or 2nd hand one by you/a local mobile repair shop (less expensive option).
If your phone was rooted at the time you did a wipe & the stock rom you were running was 4.0.4, then yes, it's probably the brickbug. But if your phone wasn't rooted and not running 4.0.4, then it could have been a whole host of things that caused it to brick (I can't help but feeling there's a bunch of info missing here).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Phone was not rooted, I forget if the last official ICS upgrade for the phone was 4.0.4 it may well be, but I did the wipe from the stock recovery menu. I honestly didn't expect it to brick this way I wasn't even modding it. But I'll try to get someone who jtags I love this damn phone.
Only one confirmed case of brickbug happening to someone wiping from stock recovery, you are not another case.
Cross your fingers it's JTAG'able, will be relatively cheap (tho manage your expectations, far more unlikely that JTAG is possible than likely) compared to the alternatives.